The detail in these speakers was immediately evident to me. It was reminiscent of the first time I used another well-known brand of very expensive powered speakers. The speakers made the whole rig sound better. Adjustments at the mixer seemed more pronounced. Tiny tweaks made huge differences.
Hey, maybe there is something to this “HD” thing.
On Friday night there are four bands scheduled, but one ends up not making it. Band number one has a cheap wireless mic for lead vocals. The singer in band number two uses his own Shure Beta58. Band number three uses a house supplied Audix OM3. The wireless mic is adequate, but nothing to write home about.
The Shure Beta58 has a pronounced “icepick” quality about it. The OM3 sound considerably soother. My point here is that the differences in vocal mics was striking. Something that is only evident when using a high quality speaker system.
The headlining band sounded vastly better than the openers. I wonder if the difference would have been as audible if I was not using the Mackie speakers?
While walking the room during the performance, I go up to see how the new cabinets are doing. The heat sinks are not even warm to the touch. The limiter light is blinking with each snare hit, so I know am around maximum output. Not to worry, the house is rockin’.
On Saturday night there are two bands. Both are of the “Metal” variety. Things went well, but I did find myself wanting a bit more output. I was into the limiters again, but again, the heat sinks were not even warm. I bring this up because some older model Mackie speakers had know thermal issues. This does not seem to be an issue with these new cabinets.
One possible explanation for the lack of heat at the heat sink is that I used the speakers on top of some 2x18” subwoofers crossed over at 90Hz. I suspect asking the internal amps to produce lower frequencies might result in more heat being generated.
The nutshell is that the Mackie HD1531 is an excellent speaker. Much better than the $1200.00 street price might indicate.
At the end of Saturday night’s gig I passed the Mackies on to Jeff Knorr, who was nice enough to come to the bar at 3:00AM to pick them up. I suspect the gigs he uses them on will be different than what I used them for. His review is forthcoming.
This discussion by Dave and the Road Test community continues here.
Do NOT buy these speakers!!!! We bought the Mackie HD1531 speakers new from Guitar Center. We were so excited after reading reviews on them. I had them less than 2 weeks and after 5 gigs one of the speakers was cutting in and out during our performance outside in 85 degrees. It was in front of thousands of people and sounded horrible. We thought the cables went bad, so we went out and bought all new cables for everything. The very next gig, we set them up outside and the 1 speaker will not come on. The thermal protective had kicked in gear and would not come on for anything. It was only 92 degrees and we found that it has to be 180 inside the speaker to shut down. Anyway, it never worked and we were stuck with using only 1 speaker all night for the whole gig which was a mess. We notified guitar center and they said it was faulty wire in the speaker. They did not have another pair at that store and sent us to Guitar Center in Arlington, TX. They hasseled us at this location about exchanging them and after arguing awhile, they finally gave us what they said was a new pair in the box. We got home and openend them the next day and found that they gave us used one, that were missing the new sticker and was all scratched and banged up on the bottom front. Plus missing all the power chords. So they sold us someones returned speakers and said they were brand spanking new. So now we are stuck with 2 speakers that do not work. We called the store and don't want to come and pick them up and want us to return them to the store which is quite far. We have another gig 1 day and desperate to have goood speakers. We are going to push to get a full refund and would not buy these speakers again. Hopefully we can find some other speakers out there that are better quality.
I tracked my rhythm guitar in mono but I think it needs to found more full. What can I do?
